Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. With the exception of the Minister—although not entirely with the exception of the Minister—all have been rather in support of the amendment. I listened very carefully to what the Minister had to say, and by the end of his speech I was almost convinced that he was going to agree with our side of the argument.
The key to this amendment is one word, and the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, touched on it: the word “may”. This amendment is extraordinarily modest. It just says to the Government, “Look, you may do this; you don’t have to”. For me, that is the key, because the Government may do it after a period of consultation. It does not seem to me to be a great leap of faith to encourage the creation of community wealth funds for social infrastructure in having the consultation that can take place at any time, where this provision actually enables the Government to be more active in supporting, if they wish at some later stage, the introduction of pilots running community wealth funds.
Noble Lords have all spoken to the importance of creating social infrastructure. That is what this amendment seeks to do, through ensuring that we create community wealth funds. That is the part that particularly attracts me to it, because in my day job as an employee of Business in the Community we seek to create levelling up through work in places. One essential thing we do  not have ready access to is good, robust, sustainable funding. In future, I can see community wealth funds becoming exactly that.
It is critical that we provide communities with that hope and potential. Many of our poorest communities do not have the capacity to generate funds or the social infrastructure to enable them to develop as communities and grow the resilience and strength they need. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, touched on this rather well in talking about her experiences during lockdown. I experienced similar feelings; well-managed, manicured open spaces provide you with a lifeline, inspiration and an ability to go out, enjoy fresh air and breathe and live again. Many of us had that experience, particularly during the first lockdown. Those things and places need nurturing and looking after. They are community assets, and something like community wealth funds will ensure that they are there and are well managed and looked after.
I will not detain the House too much longer. The noble Lord’s primary argument against the amendment was consultation. There is no reason why that cannot take place. It is already taking place. He also said that the power is already there; why not use this clause as a way of driving that and supplementing the power that is already there? It is useful in highlighting the importance and value of creating those community assets and ensuring that we have social infrastructure that works for local communities.
At an earlier stage of the Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, suggested that the ideas were not yet perfected. I do not think that is the case. That now seems to have fallen away from the Government’s range of arguments. I agree with the Minister that we need sustainable, long-term funding models. Some of those already exist, but this would add to and empower local communities in a very specific and direct way. It would not be top-down, but bottom-up. It would enable communities to thrive and do much to tackle the long-outstanding needs of some of those communities which are obviously in urgent need of levelling up.
For those reasons, I wish to test the opinion of the House on this amendment.
Ayes 216, Noes 195.

Amendment 1 agreed.
Ayes 216, Noes 195.

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay: The commitment is already made in the 2008 Act. If there is a change in distributor, or if an additional distributor is established—and I should stress that there are currently no plans for that—there are already powers in the 2008 Act to amend the legislation to ensure that any new or additional distributor must similarly report on their policy and practice in relation to the additionality principle.
However, we have responded to the noble Baroness’s desire to see the Secretary of State more specifically held accountable to the principle, and we have reinforced its importance even further by including it within Amendment 7, which we will come on to shortly, on reviewing the scheme and reporting to Parliament. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said in Committee:
“We must also be able to work out from all the reporting that we do get to see that the principle of additionality is being adhered to.”—[Official Report, 21/6/21; col. GC 9.]
We thoroughly agree, which is why our Amendment 7 will ensure that the report must include any policies and practices of the principle by the Secretary of State as well as the National Lottery Community Fund. This provision responds to requests made by noble Lords that the Secretary of State should be held more expressly accountable for ensuring that and explaining how dormant assets funding is used in ways that are genuinely additional to central Government expenditure. This demonstrates our ongoing commitment to ensuring that the principle continues to be honoured, including the ways in which funding flows to distributing bodies and on to beneficiaries.
That is why we cannot accept the amendment. I hope I have reassured the noble Baronesses that we understand their concerns, and that is why we have brought forward the additionality provision in our review and reporting amendment, Amendment 7. I can see the noble Baroness is rightly consulting the 2008 Act for the references to it. I hope on that basis she will be content with what we have proposed and content to withdraw her amendment.

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay: Moved by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay
7: After Clause 29, insert the following new Clause—“Periodic review and report to Parliament(1) The Secretary of State must carry out periodic reviews of the following matters—(a) the operation of the dormant assets scheme and the alternative scheme under section 2 of the 2008 Act during the period to which the review relates;(b) the effectiveness of the steps taken during that period (by institutions holding or providing assets within the scope of the dormant assets scheme or the alternative scheme) to reunite assets with their owners;(c) any use made of the powers conferred by section 19 during that period;(d) any use that may be made of those powers after that period.(2) In reviewing the matters described in subsection (1)(a) the Secretary of State must consider—(a) how many institutions have made transfers;(b) how much money has been transferred;(c) the effectiveness of the arrangements made with institutions for meeting repayment claims.(3) The steps referred to in subsection (1)(b) include anything done with a view to tracing, and verifying the identity of, either (or both) of the following, in relation to a particular asset—(a) the person whose right to payment (or right to direct payment) is or would be extinguished by a transfer;(b) where the asset is the proceeds of another asset, the owner or beneficiary of that other asset (before its conversion into proceeds).(4) In subsections (2) and (3)—“transfer” means a transfer of an amount to an authorised reclaim fund as mentioned in section 1(1)(a) or 2(1)(a) of the 2008 Act or section 2(1)(a), 5(1)(a), 8(1)(a), 12(1)(a) or 14(1)(a) above;“repayment claim” means a claim against an authorised reclaim fund relating to a right to payment arising as mentioned in section 1(2)(b) or 2(2)(b) of the 2008 Act or section 2(2)(b), 5(2)(b) or (3)(b), 8(2)(b), 12(2)(b) or 14(2)(b) above.  (5) The matters within the scope of a review do not include the regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority of an authorised reclaim fund or any other institution.(6) The Secretary of State must—(a) make arrangements to enable anyone with an interest in any aspect of a review to make representations,(b) consider all representations received, and(c) set out the results and conclusions of the review in a report and lay it before Parliament.(7) The report of a review must also include—(a) information about the uses made by any authorised reclaim fund of its financial resources during such period as the Secretary of State considers appropriate,(b) information about the uses made of dormant assets money for meeting English expenditure during such period as the Secretary of State considers appropriate,(c) the text of any directions given by the Secretary of State under section 22 of the 2008 Act which have effect during the period mentioned in paragraph (b), and(d) information about any policy and practice in relation to the additionality principle of—(i) the body or bodies specified in section 16(1) of the 2008 Act, and(ii) the Secretary of State, in exercising functions under Part 2 of that Act.(8) The report of a review may include information about the uses made of dormant assets money for meeting Welsh expenditure, Scottish expenditure or Northern Ireland expenditure during such period as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.(9) In this section—(a) “the additionality principle” is the principle that dormant assets money should be used to fund projects, or aspects of projects, for which funds would be unlikely to be made available by a government department, the Welsh Ministers, the Scottish Ministers or a Northern Ireland department;(b) “dormant assets money”, “English expenditure”, “Northern Ireland expenditure”, “Scottish expenditure” and “Welsh expenditure” have the same meaning as in Part 2 of the 2008 Act.(10) The first report under this section must be laid no more than 3 years after the day on which this Act is passed.(11) Any subsequent report must be laid no more than 5 years after the day on which the previous report was laid.”Member’s explanatory statementThe amendment would require periodic reviews of the dormant assets scheme and the alternative scheme, with a report to Parliament on the results. A report would include certain additional information, on matters such as the expenditure of the reclaim fund, and the use made of dormant assets money, and the additionality principle, in England. Information about use of dormant asset money in the rest of the UK would be optional. For practical reasons information included about the use of dormant assets money, or the additionality principle in England, is likely to be information publicly available elsewhere.